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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23870011">a simple gift (of love)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/scully_romanova_of_asshai/pseuds/scully_romanova_of_asshai'>scully_romanova_of_asshai</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supergirl (TV 2015)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alex is mentioned, Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Kara is an alien but not supergirl, POV Kara Danvers, and Lena knows, does part of this kind of count as a meet-cute¿? maybe, lena and kara being gay and adorable basically, mon-el is there but only as a random semi-creepy guy so he doesn't get a character tag, tense changes. but like. intentionally., they softtttt</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 00:01:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,505</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23870011</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/scully_romanova_of_asshai/pseuds/scully_romanova_of_asshai</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>lena likes to leave kara gifts on her door</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>440</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>a simple gift (of love)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>tbh, this became much less about the gift thing than originally planned, but I hope you like anyway</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kara has had a really crappy day. Not crappy enough for her to call it shitty, as she still tries to avoid English curse words, but crappy nonetheless.</p>
<p>
  <i>(alex had somehow managed to convince her when she first came to earth that she would literally die if she said fuck – never mind that if literal bombs couldn’t kill her cursing certainly wouldn’t. she had then proceeded to do her best to try to get her to say it. kara had quickly realized that she was lying, and lying very badly at that, but it had stuck. alex still laughs about it.)</i>
</p>
<p>So yeah. Her day? Crappy. She’d had two exams in a row, starting bright and early at nine in the morning, and while both had gone fine, the stress that had built up while she was preparing for them seemed like it was going to take a bit to go away <i>(if her other assignments even allowed for that)</i>. </p>
<p>She’d gone to get a hot chocolate as a reward after finishing her exams, and someone had managed to spill both their own coffee and her hot chocolate all over her, at which point she’d had to pretend that it hurt enough that no one would be suspicious, but not enough that anyone would actually feel the need to try to help her. </p>
<p>She’d rushed back to her room to change before class, but there’s really no way to use her superspeed on campus without being seen by anyone, and Alex yelling at her is something she doesn’t need today <i>(or ever)</i>, so she’d been late and Professor Grant had glared at her the whole class, pointedly looking her right in the eye for a full five seconds before not calling on her each time she raised her hand.</p>
<p>After a wonderful two hours of that, she’d gone to the library to finish up a paper she’d been having trouble with, which had taken a lot longer than she’d expected, which is why she’s now walking back to her dorm in the dark, still somewhat in denial about the fact that the store and both of the dining halls are closed <i>(why are their hours always so weird?)</i>.</p>
<p>And to top it all off, she hasn’t seen Lena all day.</p>
<p>-----</p>
<p>She met Lena last year, in the middle of a snowstorm so bad that all classes were cancelled for the day. Lena had not gotten the memo, as she was in the deep basement engineering labs, working on a project, when the university sent out the email at five in the morning. To be fair, the snow was unexpected and started coming down very quickly. To be more fair <i>(in kara’s humble opinion, at least)</i>, it was completely unreasonable that Lena had been there working on her project at five in the morning <i>(but kara’s not going to complain, obviously. it is how they ended up meeting, after all)</i>.</p>
<p>So whether or not Lena was at all to blame for the situation, the situation was this – Kara heard someone cursing outside the entrance to the dorm building when there definitely should have been nobody outside. Intrigued and worried <i>(mostly worried)</i>, she went downstairs to investigate and discovered a girl, in just leggings and a short-sleeved t-shirt, attempting to swipe her ID to unlock the door, but failing due to some snow having fallen into the mechanism and frozen.</p>
<p>She had just given up on that and begun attempting to manually force the door open <i>(it wasn’t going very well)</i> when Kara reached the door and pushed it open herself. Except <i>maybe</i> Kara should have given her a warning or something, because her strenuous door-pulling efforts combined with Kara’s opening of said door led to her momentum sending her <i>flying</i> through the air into a snowbank.</p>
<p>“Oh, <i>Rao</i>, are you okay? I’m <i>so sorry</i>.” Kara rushed out to help her up before she was stopped by a yelp and raised hands from the girl, who was still struggling to get out from the snow pile she’d landed in.</p>
<p>“Don’t let the door close!” Kara’s eyes widened and she rushed back to catch the door just before it closed <i>(sure, she could’ve pulled it open even had it closed all the way, but that would likely have raised some questions that she shouldn’t necessarily be answering)</i>.</p>
<p>The girl managed to clamber out of the snow and darted quickly through the door, rubbing her arms in an effort to warm up. She looked prepared to run straight up the stairs, before she seemingly remembered the girl who had just saved her from the cold and turned back around. Kara gave her an awkward wave, and she snorted, then covered her face with both hands.</p>
<p>Once she recovered from her embarrassment <i>(kara had no idea why she was embarrassed; that was adorable)</i>, she smiled, small and slightly self-deprecating. “Thanks for saving me. I was getting a little desperate out there, as you saw.”</p>
<p>“Aw, shucks,” Kara said, and the girl raised both eyebrows, the corners of her lips tugging upward slightly. “It was nothing.” She pushed up her glasses and grinned sheepishly. “Plus I basically pushed you into the snow, so I kind of did more harm than good.”</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t say that,” the girl said, and then there was silence for a few moments, because how do you respond to that? She was just turning away to leave again, and Kara suddenly found that she didn’t really want her to.</p>
<p>“Wait,” she blurted out, awkwardly pausing as she realized she still didn’t know the girl’s name. “Uh, I have hot chocolate upstairs if you want some.” It was rushed and sounded a little more like a question than a statement, but the girl was seemingly able to parse it, as her eyes narrowed in suspicion.</p>
<p>“Look, I know we’ve established I’m grateful and all, but I’m not <i>that</i> grateful.”</p>
<p>Kara felt her brow furrow in confusion as she frowned. <i>Not grateful enough to accept hot chocolate?</i> And then she realized what the girl was talking about and her eyes went wide as she held up her hands in disavowal. “No! I – just – hot chocolate?” <i>Great job; very eloquent, Kara.</i></p>
<p>The girl’s cheeks reddened as she realized she’d mistaken Kara’s intentions. Her hands came up to cover her mouth once again and her voice was slightly muffled as she spoke through them. “Ohmigod, I’m <i>so</i> sorry, I have <i>no</i> idea why I assumed–”</p>
<p>Kara cut her off gently with another repeated “Hot chocolate?”</p>
<p>The girl’s blush deepened slightly, visible as she dropped her hands from her face. “Yeah, I’d love some.” She looked down at herself before looking back up with her nose <i>(adorably)</i> wrinkled. “I should maybe change first though.”</p>
<p>Kara waved off her concern. “You can just borrow something of mine.”</p>
<p>The girl seemed prepared to protest, before evidently deciding against it. She followed a step behind Kara as they walked up the stairs, and only when they reached her door did Kara remember that maybe she should find out the girl’s name.</p>
<p>“Lena,” the girl said in response to her question, a gentle smile on her lips.</p>
<p>“Lena,” Kara repeated. She bit her lip. “I’m Kara. Nice to meet you.”</p>
<p>“Nice to meet you too, Kara,” Lena said, smile growing.</p>
<p>And that was that.</p>
<p>-----</p>
<p>Kara finally makes it back to her dorm <i>(nothing is very far apart on their campus, but things always feel very far apart)</i> and wearily climbs the stairs before walking down the hall to her room at the end. She’s fumbling around for her key when something catches her attention out of the corner of her eye, and when she turns to fully look at what it is she breaks into a bright smile that she didn’t know she even still had in her after the day she’s had. </p>
<p>On the door is taped a plastic bag, filled with sticky buns <i>(there’s a lot of tape holding it up. lena has gotten this down to an art. though kara would still eat them if they fell on the floor)</i>, a green post-it note on the bag with a heart drawn on it. Kara smiles.</p>
<p>-----</p>
<p>Lena had started leaving her presents taped to her door soon after they had become friends. </p>
<p>Kara had insisted she didn’t have to do anything like that multiple times <i>(usually while eating something lena had left for her, which maybe didn’t really help her case)</i>, but Lena continued to do so <i>(she’d heard her mumble ‘better if at least some of this money goes to someone who’s not an asshole for once’ at a volume she didn’t think kara could hear once and reluctantly didn’t say anything about it, just resolved to make sure lena knew she was nowhere near being an asshole, notwithstanding the rest of her family)</i>. </p>
<p>Usually it’s food, though once there was a book <i>(she’d put off all her work and stayed up all night to read it – inadvertently ignoring lena’s texts, though she was more than forgiven once she revealed the reason in the morning)</i>, and another time a shirt <i>(she’d put it on immediately, and when she’d met lena for dinner that evening lena had gone wide-eyed for a full ten seconds before stuttering out a high-pitched ‘you look nice’ and not meeting her eyes for the rest of the night)</i>.</p>
<p>Once she’d told Lena about her…well…herself, the volume of food she discovered taped to her door had exponentially increased <i>(alex had yelled at her, telling her it was too soon, but kara thinks nothing is too soon with lena. really, she wishes everything could have happened earlier – where was lena all her life?) (lena, when she told her, had simply laughed – ‘that explains a few things,’ she’d said – but kara could see in her eyes that she understood, was overwhelmed by, really, what it meant that she’d told her. she’d swept the smaller girl up in a hug that must’ve lasted ten minutes, at least, and if she felt a few tears fall on her shoulder, well, nothing needed to be said)</i>.</p>
<p>-----</p>
<p>Kara pulls the bag off the door while she unlocks it.</p>
<p>Well, tries to unlock it – turns out it’s already unlocked.</p>
<p>She steps inside, already smiling <i>(and alex would yell at her if she knew, tell her to be careful, but alex always thinks everything is horrible – kara likes to be optimistic)</i>, to see Lena sitting at her desk, a pencil shoved into her messy bun, one knee tucked up against her chest, as she sits lit only by the desk lamp. Kara feels her chest fill with warmth.</p>
<p>-----</p>
<p>They went to get Lena a key to her room the day after Kara told her about her powers. She’d wanted to give one to her earlier, but she’d figured it would be better to wait so that she could tell Lena her secret, rather than have her walk in on evidence of it. She had also been a little worried about <i>how</i> she would actually get a key to give to Lena. She was still worried about that, actually.</p>
<p>Lena was not worried about that <i>(‘if you’re sure you want that, i know how to handle it’ ‘of course I want that, lena’ ‘alright then’ she smiled, leaned up to plant a kiss on kara’s cheek faster than she could blink, and entangled their hands to drag her away while she was still dazed) (admittedly that wasn’t very difficult, as she was still dazed when they got to the hardware store fifteen minutes later)</i>.</p>
<p>Lena certainly had it handled <i>(though kara wished she’d maybe had a little warning) (she’s not sure if that’s true, actually)</i>. She walked confidently up to the key counter, smirking a little upon catching sight of the man behind the counter, with his dirty white t-shirt, looking like he’d forgotten to shave for a couple days, and thrust the key out toward him <i>(kara didn’t even known when she’d gotten it from her)</i>, her other hand still entwined with Kara’s.</p>
<p>He nearly stuck it straight into the machine before he frowned, looking up at them. Kara felt Lena shift closer to her, pins and needles running all up and down her side. “This says not to copy it,” he said, sounding confused <i>(and slightly whiny, for some reason)</i>.</p>
<p>Lena turned to Kara, lower lip pulled into her mouth, and Kara felt a blush burst across her face, and when Lena spoke, her voice had a syrupy tone to it that Kara had never heard before. “Oh, I know,” she said, turning the lip bite on the man behind the counter, who was wholly unprepared for it <i>(kara could sympathize)</i>, “but my <i>girlfriend</i> and I were really hoping you could overlook that. We just want to be able to spend more time together, and I don’t want her to have to leave her door unlocked or anything.” Here she turned back to Kara, who was valiantly attempting not to pass out, which was not helped by Lena continuing with “isn’t that right, baby?” and pressing a kiss under her ear.</p>
<p>The man’s eyes were bulging as Kara stuttered out a “y-yeah” and Lena slid a couple of bills across the counter with a saccharine smile.</p>
<p>Needless to say, they walked out with a copy of Kara’s key a few minutes later, Lena calling a triumphant “Thank you, Mike” over her shoulder.</p>
<p>They walked in silence for a few minutes before Kara got accustomed enough to the fact that Lena was <i>still holding her hand</i> to notice that Lena was also looking at her with a worried frown on her face every few seconds. She stopped walking, pulling Lena over into the shadow of an apartment building so they wouldn’t be blocking the sidewalk, catching her other hand into her hold as well. “<i>Hey.</i> What’s wrong?”</p>
<p>Lena’s frown deepened. “Was that okay?” And her voice sounded nothing like it did inside, soft now, and a little scared. <i>Why is she scared?</i> </p>
<p>“Yeah, just a little unexpected,” Kara said. “Are <i>you</i> okay?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, of course,” Lena said in a rush, but she tugged one of her hands away from Kara’s and wouldn’t meet her eyes as she pulled them into a walk again.</p>
<p>Kara let the silence hold for a few minutes before she spoke up again. “Out of curiosity,” she started, feeling Lena tense slightly before obviously making a conscious decision to relax again, “what would you have done if the key person wasn’t a creepy guy?”</p>
<p>Lena hummed in consideration. “Probably hoped they were gay,” she said, with such an air of nonchalance that, along with the fact that she wouldn’t meet Kara’s eyes when Kara turned toward her, it had to be feigned.</p>
<p>Kara decided the only solution was to be equally casual about it. “Yeah, that probably would’ve worked.” She felt Lena quickly turn her head toward her and back away again and smiled slightly. “I mean not necessarily the hoping part. The being gay. Part. Them being gay.” <i>Nailed it.</i> </p>
<p>She turned to face Lena and found a smile tugging at her lips as well. “Yeah?” she said softly, one eyebrow quirking up in amusement.</p>
<p>She smiled more fully back at her. “Yeah, I mean, well, it usually works for a lot of things.”</p>
<p>Lena stared at her for a full five seconds as Kara’s face reddened before she broke into laughter in the middle of the sidewalk. When she could finally speak again, she grinned. “You’re right; it really does.”</p>
<p>
  <i>(lena also took it upon herself to respond to anything she could with ‘it works for a lot of things’ after that)</i>
</p>
<p>-----</p>
<p>She rushes across the room to hug Lena from behind, the pencil in the other girl’s hair nearly poking her in the eye when Lena jolts, startled. “Hi!” she says.</p>
<p>Lena turns, a soft smile on her lips. Kara finds her eyes drawn to it until Lena gently clears her throat, the smile shifting closer to a smirk, but still fond. Kara’s eyes flit up to catch Lena’s, cheeks flushing. “<i>Hi,</i>” Lena says, “how was your day? I thought you’d be back a while ago, gotten a lot done without you here to distract me,” this last said with an attempted wink <i>(kara had tried to teach her, but, admittedly, not very hard)</i>.</p>
<p>Kara claps her hands to her heart in mock offense. “<i>Wowww,</i> I see how it is,” she turns away and grins when Lena’s hand locks around her wrist just like she expected, turning back to her. “But really, my day is better now.”</p>
<p>“Yeah?” Lena asks, smiling in a way that scrunches up her nose <i>(still adorable)</i>.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Kara responds, smiling. “I mean, I have sticky buns now, sooo.”</p>
<p>Lena scoffs, pulling her hand away and rolling her eyes, though Kara can still see the smile she can’t bring herself to hide. “<i>Well,</i> guess I’ll just <i>leave</i> then,” she says, making a show of gathering up her things from the desk. </p>
<p>Kara rushes her again, wrapping her arms tightly around her and trapping her <i>(though they both know that if lena really wanted to get away kara would always let her)</i>. “Noooo, you can’t leave, Lena, I just got here!”</p>
<p>Lena turns around within the cage of her arms, already prepared with a perfect eyebrow raised. “Are you going to apologize?” she asks softly, teasing, and Kara suddenly realizes how close together they are, how close together their <i>faces</i> are. Her eyes flick down to Lena’s lips for a moment before she jolts them back upward, hoping Lena didn’t notice.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry, Lena,” she says, overly seriously. “You’re better than sticky buns.” She can hardly see the color of Lena’s eyes in this light. She suddenly wants to look closer. </p>
<p>She’s startled out of her contemplation, stopped from leaning even closer by Lena’s soft “<i>Are you going to make it up to me?</i>”</p>
<p>Kara blinks, then blinks again, mouth going dry, because she has only one thought about how to do that, and <i>surely</i> that’s not what Lena’s talking about. “I – <i>yeah</i> – I mean yeah, of course I’ll make it up to you, Lena, what do you want me to –”</p>
<p>She’s cut off when her breath catches in her throat as Lena’s thumb brushes against the corner of her mouth – she doesn’t even know when Lena got her hands back, but her lips pucker instinctually and she kisses the thumb lightly when it sweeps further over them. She looks up from where she realizes her eyes were drawn back to Lena’s lips and <i>now</i> she’s close enough she can see the color of her eyes, and they’re <i>dark</i> and before she can consider that further Lena’s lips are pressed against hers, soft and warm, and oh <i>Rao</i> Lena’s kissing her, she should probably close her eyes.</p>
<p>She does, just in time for Lena to pull away, and she leans forward, eyes still closed, and feels Lena smiling against her when their lips connect again. She manages to pull that off a couple more times, before she leans forward right into Lena’s hand and blinks her eyes back open to see Lena struggling not to laugh, presumably over the pout she’s sure she now has on her face.</p>
<p>“Hi,” Lena says, eyes so soft, <i>lips</i> so soft, she’s so <i>soft</i>.</p>
<p>“Hi,” Kara echoes, still a little dazed.</p>
<p>“I’ve wanted to do that for a long time,” Lena says, and she sounds almost <i>nervous</i>, which Kara can’t allow, looking down and biting her lip.</p>
<p>“I have too,” she says, reaching over and hefting Lena up into her arms, even as her gaze shoots back upwards at Kara’s words, and then she takes a few large steps over to the bed before she dives onto it, taking care to land on her back with Lena above her.</p>
<p>Apparently not quite enough care, as Lena groans, slumping down onto her, “<i>God</i>, Kara, <i>warn</i> the <i>human</i>.”</p>
<p>Kara sits up, frantic, causing Lena to slide off of her chest. “Are you okay? I’m sorry, I didn’t - ”</p>
<p>Lena cuts her off, pulling at her shirt collar and smiling warmly up at her. “I’m fine, just wasn’t prepared for that. C’mere, lay back down, you can make it up to me.”</p>
<p>Kara’s face warms as she’s reminded of the words that led to this, and she lays back again, happy as she can remember being as Lena shuffles back on top of her, planting a sloppy kiss on her lips before tucking her face into her neck with a hum of content. She rubs a hand over her back and brings the other up to rest in Lena’s hair at the nape of her neck.</p>
<p>She can’t help but think they could have been doing this earlier, but she silences the thought – she can kiss Lena now, she can <i>hold</i> Lena now, like this, and that’s what matters, not how much time she spent not doing it. </p>
<p>She smiles, and closes her eyes.</p>
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